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Vladimir Putin, Cliven Bundy, the death of home foreclosures: PolitiFact Oregon Roundup

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Did Russian President Vladimir Putin really accuse Barack Obama of being an idiot? Yes and no. Yes in a Facebook meme traced to a satirical site. No in real life. The claim makes today's PolitiFact Oregon Roundup of silly nothings from the blogosphere.
(Alexei Nikolsky/Associated Press)

Anytime we at PolitiFact Oregon are scrounging for a fact solid enough to hang our hat on, we head straight for the nearest Facebook post, anonymous blog site or chain email.

Once there, we open our eyes in wonder and believe everything we read.

Actually, we don’t. That would make us PolitiFiction Oregon, right? And, although we do get called that by the occasional commenter, we know it’s only because they care.

Yet because fiction can sometimes be as interesting as fact, we decided to devote today’s PolitiFact Oregon Roundup to a smattering of the wild Internet-based claims that are passed off as true. We hope you enjoy the ride.

A recent chain email claimed, among other things, that President Obama wants the country to sign on to the United Nations’ International Criminal Court, a body that investigates and brings to justice individuals who commit war crimes.

Oops. PolitiFact National's check showed that Obama has made no sign that he wants to become a full-blown member of the court. “Even if he did, doing so would require 67 votes in the Senate, making it essentially a nonstarter,” the story concluded. “We rate the claim False.”

Home foreclosures have been in the news for a few years now, but a recent social media meme included a striking claim. It said, “”1.4 million homes stolen by banks since 2008. Over 300K home owner suicides attributes to foreclosures. Why won’t anyone defend these American property owners’ rights?”

As it turns out, going back to 2002, there have been just over 300,000 suicides in this country. But that’s the total number of suicides. For the claim to be true, every one of those deaths would have to be related to a home foreclosure, and experts say that’s not credible. The claim was rated Pants on Fire.

President Obama has taken his lumps over the rocky rollout of the Affordable Care Act, but did that include some trash-talking by Russian President Vladimir Putin? A Facebook meme quotes Putin as saying, “Any fourth grade history student knows socialism has failed in every country, at every time in history. President Obama and his Democrats are either idiots or deliberately trying to destroy their own economy.”

Tough talk there, Vlad the Invader! But as it turns out, the alleged quote is not new. In fact, it’s circulated online for almost six years and comes from a satire website. Putin’s “claim” was rated Pants on Fire.

Chain emails are normally as reliable as spring rain in Oregon, right? Still, PolitiFact wondered when one showed up claiming that “more than 1,000 American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last 27 months. This is more than the combined total of the nine years before.”

“This may have been true in mid 2012,” the check found, “but the statistics are now so out of date that the trend has actually reversed itself. U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan have been declining for the past four years. The email’s claim was rated False.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has made a big news splash recently, first as the cause celebre for conservatives cheering his fight against federal officials over his cattle-grazing practices and, more recently, for making statements widely dismissed as racist. None of that, however, stopped a tea party website from claiming that U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., “is using federal violence to take people’s land in his state so he can package it to re-sell it to the Chinese.”

PunditFact's check, which included evaluating the claim’s assertion that the Chinese wanted the land for a large solar project, concluded, “There is nothing accurate about this claim. The dispute involved Bundy’s long use of federal land without a permit.” The busy bloggers got a Pants on Fire for their troubles.

Well, color us www.who knew? Turns out everything we stumble across on the net isn’t true after all. Have you seen any fantabulisms you’d like to pass along? Do so here and let’s get the conversation started.